The Science of Shopping

I am sure most of you have seen this picture emailed to your inbox by your tech un-savvy aunt Gilda who can use that 'forward' button like a pro.  Or maybe you saw it on a Facebook feed. But if you have never seen it, look at, study it, and find the truth in it. I was going to explain the graphic to you but it is so simple and intuitive and if you don't get it, then you have never been to a mall and you have never met a woman with fake nails. It's a graphic depiction of what happens when a woman goes to the mall verses when a man goes to the mall, both with the same mission: to buy a pair of pants at the Gap.  Most non-vegetarian men can do this.  But as soon as a women walks inside a mall, time becomes relative.  Much like when a guy says there is only 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter and the game is tied and he's pretty sure the referees are corrupt.  The women has the intention of sticking to the original plan of buying the pants and leaving, but those sales signs in front of the stores are no different than that stupid snake that tempted Eve to take a bite out of that apple.  If Adam was into fashion, he would take out that snake for his skin and replace that tacky leaf with a snake skin underwear.  Temptation wouldn't win, just like those glorious sale signs.  Women see the sale signs and we don't think about spending money.  We think about saving money. We usually don't need most the crap we buy but a purchase is an analytical decision.  Do I like it?  Does it make me look skinny?  Could I see myself in this as a repost on Pinterest? Does it make me itch or accentuate my love handles?  What am I going to make for dinner? How long until the next gifting holiday? What should I make for dinner? This shirt makes me look hot.  Is there a Groupon on botox? People who shoplift are horrible.  Mustard. I need mustard.   What's that smell?  Ugh! Someone farted.  I don't wanna be gross.  I am buying the shirt.  This AD/HD thought process happens with every store that has a sale sign. That's why women just can't go to a mall to buy that one thing and leave.  Our shopping process puts us in a warped reality of time (like the last 10 minutes of a football game) and we enjoy every second of it.

Being in a bad mood.

This morning I woke up in a pretty neutral mood.  I followed my usual morning routine:  Alarm off at 5 am; stick one leg out to the bed so that the weight of that leg slowly pulls me out of bed; bathroom; shower; a glass of not-from-concentrated OJ for breakfast; hug cat; dry my hair; put on makeup; hug cat again- she is very needy in the morning; get dressed; check myself out in 3 different mirrors to get 3 different opinions.  Yes, mirrors are very subjective and it’s important to get the average of 3. By the way,   I am not sure if I am using those semicolons correctly but the comma didn’t look and read right.  Anyways,  I hop in my car and drive to work.  But all the sudden, I found myself agitated with mean thoughts and I couldn’t understand why.  Why were all my random thoughts laced with profanity and the desire to destroy a person’s reputation by giving their business a bad Yelp review or using my intermediate Photoshop skills to create an embarrassing image of them?   How apparent is it that my level of cruelty is ‘nerd’?  By the time I got to work my thoughts were neutralized and boring.  But, now I know why I got all pissy for no reason.  On my way to work, I drove by an acquaintance’s house and by acquaintance I mean a person who I see at parties from time to time and who has recently stuck her little pig nose up at me. I remembered that she had a huge Christmas party and left me out of the Evite list.  I don’t care who you are but everyone feels a ping of rejection when they are left out of a party.  It could be a cats and crochet party or a Polka music dancing party and it would

still scratch a weak nerve.  What really bugged me is that it bugged me and I knew the only way to get over it quickly is to repeat this affirmation: “I am smart.  I am beautiful. I am smart and I am beautiful.  I am smart and I am beautiful”.  Nothing.  I was still chaffed.  So I had to tweak my affirmation:  “I am smart.  I am beautiful.  I can do anything I want.  I too will have a big party and not invite her”.  Ahh, much better.  Just like that, I was fine. 

I am not going to have a big party but just knowing that I can do it is enough to get me through these stupid thoughts that creep in and try to ruin 5 minutes of my life.  Sometimes just knowing that we have the power of some useless revenge is enough to make us move on.  Now I am not talking about revenge in terms of someone burning your house down or spreading vicious rumors about  your feminine problems, but about high school issues that still haunt you.  It all boils down to rejection.  And what is rejection?  Rejection is when someone doesn’t accept you for who think you are. At that point you just have to accept that no matter how awesome that person is perceived to be, he/she will never be that fit for you.  If that’s not enough then know that if you could ever be a recording iPhone on their wall, their everyday problems would make you laugh like an idiot and maybe, just maybe, love them.

A Skin Cream made from Foreskin

Recently my sister introduced me to a skin cream that has the circumcised foreskin of a baby's wiener.  The cream claims that the cells of the foreskin contain this human ingredient that will help your skin with...come on everyone, say it with me...wrinkles, fine lines, uneven tone and texture in 30 days.  It also costs well over $100.  I can't tell you how much money I have spent on face creams with the main ingredients being something totally odd that only a hallucinating scientist can concoct that are supposed to make my skin look better.  I have tried creams with snail slime, emu oil, tomato acid, ashes from a deadly volcano, fish eggs, cow urine, a plum that only grows in Australia and a whole array of funky acids.  Since I had spent so much money on it, my mind and I really wanted them to work.  I would look in the mirror and try to convince myself that it really was working.   I even went as far as marking the longitude and latitude of all the wrinkles and discolorations of my skin so that I can have a tool to measure my success.  Did any of those creams make me look like the photoshopped girls in beauty ads? Yes, they all did, but only for that period of time where I had to justify spending one month of wine money to help my skin look flawless.  It's like if someone tells you that repeating the letter 'D' 10 times mimics the mating call for human lice and it's a sure way to contract them, you're going to wake up in the middle of the night itching like crazy.  The mind does crazy things.  These companies that sell expensive skin creams with wiener skins or butterfly snot are banking in with the fact that you will temporarily believe anything they claim.  But let's just get analytical for a moment and think about the process of obtaining baby foreskin to use in a skin cream.  To get the skin in the first place, the representatives of the company would have to supply Ziplock baggies to the neonatal unit to collect the foreskins.  I am assuming there is not a market for this among Jewish hospitals.  At some point, some crazy nurse is going to ask a lot of questions which will ultimately involve lawyers to represent the babies and demand compensation for the 'parental voluntary removal of a human fiber for the purpose or purpose(s) of obtaining financial investment and returns containing or claiming to contain the beneficial results of such modifications exempifying elaborated efforts of the proclamation of declaration by emancipation as stated in 85th Amendment of Pennsylvania ruling'.   I swear I think lawyers go to law school just to learn how to confuse people, but that's why no one questions class action lawsuits. 
My point is, it's not that simple collecting baby foreskins.  I am sure if  you read the fine line, which is always written in a .000000001 font size, it will say that the main ingredient is cabbage which is suppose to have the same properties as a baby foreskin.  I just don't believe any expensive cream will be any better than the grocery store ones. I guess I am just a jaded lover of expensive skin cream.